More volunteers. More outreach to people who don’t want to come out from the cold. More attention paid.
As Portland gears up this week for Day 28 of severe weather so far this winter, the tragedy of the last snowstorm that left four people dead of hypothermia has pushed government, social service agencies and grassroots groups to re-evaluate their approach.
Free Hot Soup, whose volunteers bring homeless people hot meals every day, started a spreadsheet that tracks which shelters need extra food. Boots on the Ground PDX, another volunteer-run outreach group, is working directly with city and county officials to help the official effort and helping make sure grassroots and contracted organizations avoid duplicating services.
Ree Kaarhus, Boots on the Ground leader, said she and other outreach groups have had dozens of volunteers ask how they can help. She plans to put them to work now.
“Our goal is to really not have anybody freeze to death this time,” Kaarhus said.
The new storm predicted to hit Thursday night isn’t expected to bring the weeks of frigid temperatures or the foot of snow that early January’s storm did. The Portland Building and a Multnomah County building in Gresham both opened as temporary emergency shelters, because churches, community centers and full-time shelters overflowed. On the busiest day, 748 people sought shelter — those are on top of people who already have six-month or permanent shelter.
Leaders at the American Legion Post 134 on Northeast Alberta took it upon themselves to house people and deliver cold-weather gear and meals to homeless people to fill the need. They will decide Tuesday whether to do the same for this storm.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury called on residents to help keep an eye on homeless people and call for help if needed.
Almost 50 people disrupted a City Council meeting last week to protest the deaths, carrying a tiny coffin to symbolize a stillborn baby delivered on the streets by a homeless woman. They said Wheeler failed to do Onbahis everything possible to keep homeless people sheltered and alive.
But Kaarhus said that she felt the city and county response has been better coordinated and more integrated with grassroots efforts than in years past.
“I truly feel like the city and county took those deaths as personally as we did,” she said.
Even if the storm isn’t as bad, lessons from the last bout are informing new strategies going forward.
Multnomah County’s building in Gresham will open Tuesday night and remain open through Saturday morning. Gresham often hits freezing temperatures before downtown Portland, so county officials are adjusting how services are deployed to protect the sizable homeless population there.
Portland’s severe weather shelters will open Wednesday through Saturday morning.
Michael Cox, spokesman for Wheeler, said outreach and city workers also changed how they check on people who refuse to come inside during freezing weather.
Instead of offering blankets and food, then moving on, outreach teams will check back every few hours to make sure the people who refuse shelter still want to be outside and are alive and safe.
The four men and women who died in January were alone at the time, some of whom previously refused help from their families. The mother of the stillborn baby was had severe mental illness, police said.
Cox said outreach workers can’t be in every parking garage or know someone is hiding in the woods, but that the city has created software to better organize and deploy volunteers and staff to reach more people.
“The larger point remains that people by and large have a decision to make for themselves if they come inside and under what circumstances,” Cox said. “You cannot force somebody into shelter or into treatment except for some very narrow prescribed circumstances.”
Denis Theriault, spokesman for the city and county’s joint homeless service office A Home For Everyone, said that the county sent surveys to everyone involved in the January storm’s homeless response to gather feedback on what worked and what didn’t. He said part of the goal is to prevent more deaths.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into figuring out where people are and why people don’t show up on the radar,” Theriault said.
— Molly Harbarger
mharbarger@oregonian.com
503-294-5923
@MollyHarbarger
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